


A Light in the Heart

by kaeorin



Series: Loki's Lullabies [74]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Comfort, Confessions, F/M, Fear, Fluff and Angst, Jotunn Loki (Marvel), Loki (Marvel) Feels, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Love, POV Loki (Marvel), Reader-Insert, Rejection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24599206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: You ask Loki for the one thing he cannot bring himself to give you. Slowly, he comes around.
Relationships: Loki (Marvel)/Reader
Series: Loki's Lullabies [74]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678240
Comments: 11
Kudos: 287





	A Light in the Heart

You were the one to bring it up. Otherwise, it was a perfectly lovely night. You were curled up beside him with your head on his shoulder. You traced ticklish patterns against his belly and he was trying to decide whether to cover your hand with his to make you stop, or tickle you in return. And then you’d asked him about it, in a voice so soft and sweet that it contrasted sharply against just what it was that you were asking.

You wanted to see his other form. His monstrous form. You were still talking talking, listing off several reasons, and he was sure that they were well thought-out and rational, but he wasn’t really listening. Instead, his mind was playing through all the possible outcomes, mostly the ones where you turned away from him or fled entirely.

“I can’t. I won’t do it. Please don’t ask me again.”

You stopped speaking, and he couldn’t help but feel like he’d slapped you. He didn’t talk to you like that. No one should. He sounded cold and commanding, and he knew that that had no place here in your bed but your request terrified him. Your hand didn’t stop moving on his belly, so that was something, at least.

“Can I ask—Why? Are you a different person? Do you lose control?” He imagined that he heard fear creeping into your voice. Maybe he did. He wanted to play along and tell you that he’d turn into a bloodthirsty monster, but he couldn’t. That was simply too big a lie. He desperately wanted to close his hand around yours now. He clenched his fingers around the sheets instead.

“No, love. I’m still me. And that’s why.” He drew in a slow breath. The next part of his confession, if he could work up the courage to make it, was more open and vulnerable than he’d ever allowed himself to be, even with you. But you deserved to hear it. “I cannot bear the thought of watching fear replace the love in your eyes.”

You were quiet for a long time. He braced himself for your wounded pride. He knew that he was being foolish. If your roles were reversed right now, he’d probably have to pull away from you and get out of the bed. If, after all this time, you still did not trust him to accept every last part of you—even the dark, gritty parts—it would hurt him more than he was truly comfortable with. But even with that knowledge, he still couldn’t shake his fear. You were too dear to him, far too precious, and he was afraid that if you looked at his Jotunn form with even the slightest moment of uncertainty (something to which you were most assuredly entitled), he would lose you completely. Your hand went still against him and his heart all but stopped beating.

But you did not pull away. 

He felt you nod again, felt your long, slow exhalation on his chest. “You don’t have to. I’m sorry. I won’t ask again.” He felt you press even closer and tangle your leg with his. “I love you.”

It took him a long time to fall asleep that night. He knew that his refusal hurt your feelings. He knew it. But you did not pull away from him. You didn’t punish him by disallowing him access to your body. What’s more, you still managed to fall asleep on his chest, the way you did every other night. He laid there, staring with burning eyes at the ceiling and trying not to wonder at your steadfast loyalty.

In the morning, he woke up alone. He didn’t like it, but it wasn’t uncommon enough to make him nervous yet. He pulled your pillow closer to him and laid there for a while, listening for any signs of your presence in the apartment. The shower wasn’t running. He didn’t hear music anywhere. Sometimes, when you slipped out of bed first thing in the morning, he could lie there and listen to you sing quietly to yourself in the kitchen, but you were silent. Before long, curiosity drove him out of bed to look for you. He found you in the kitchen, reading quietly at the table with a mug of coffee and an empty plate in front of you. When you looked up and saw him, you gave him the same soft smile that you always did.

“Good morning! There’s coffee. Do you want some toast or something?” You closed your book and made as though to rise, but he was faster, and stopped you before you could. He did pour himself a mug of coffee, though it was mostly just to have something to do with his hands. 

He’d expected something different. Even after you laid so close to him last night, he’d expected you to be different in the morning. He knew perfectly well that his inability to trust you was painful for you. He wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d looked at him sadly, or even if you hadn’t been able to look at him at all. But you wanted to make him breakfast? He turned to lean against the counter and tried not to stare at you. You’d gone back to reading. 

In a way, this all would have been easier if you were upset and held this against him. Maybe then he’d have some proof that he’d been right to doubt you. Not that he would have been upset with you over that—no one in the nine realms could have blamed you for being hurt. But your calm acceptance made him second-guess himself. He didn’t like it.

He stared idly into the black depths of his coffee. The silence between you took on a new, strange air of oppressiveness. Normally, he could sit quietly in the same room with you for hours, but this morning, he was uncomfortable. He swallowed once or twice, then looked over at you again. You were still reading. As he watched, he became more and more convinced that you were _actually_ reading. Just like always, he could watch the story play out on your face. You were always so unguarded with him, so...fearless. He cleared his throat. You didn’t look up right away, apparently choosing instead to finish whatever line you were reading, and then marked your place with your finger. “I love you.” He put every ounce of truth into those words. He _needed_ you to know that. He watched your face soften as you made sense of what he was telling you, watched your lips curl into that private smile. You always looked like that when he told you he loved you: like hearing the words was enough to calm your very spirit. It had taken him a long time to get used to that, but today it reassured him.

“I love you too.” Your smile widened a bit as you looked at him. You did not make a point to emphasize that you loved _all_ of him. You did not take advantage of his inability to speak in order to push a little bit harder. You were just taking him in. “Are you okay?”

“Frost Giants were the bogeyman in Asgard.” He spoke before he could really decide whether he wanted to. He knew that he should have followed your lead. You were pretending not to remember last night, so he could easily have done the same. But he owed you an explanation. “For as long as I can remember, I heard terrifying stories about them. They’re _horrifying_.”

You rose to your feet without a word, and came to stand in front of him. Still without speaking, you took his mug from him and placed it on the counter behind him, then wrapped your arms tightly around his waist and held him. “It’s okay.” Your voice was muffled against his chest, but he could hear you perfectly. “I get it. You don’t have to do it.” You stood there quietly for a little while longer, until he felt the muscles in your arms begin to tremble from how tightly you were holding him. Then you drew in a breath and lifted your head to look up at him. “I’m so sorry they made you hate yourself. You are everything to me. You don’t have to show me. I _love_ you.”

The uncomplicated earnestness in your words made him feel like he was choking. When he was younger, he might have scoffed at this. He might have rolled his eyes and tried to push you away. How could someone be worth his time, after all, if they were not a roiling mess on the inside like him? How could they be worth his time if they weren’t jaded and skeptical and constantly in need of solid proof? The idea of ever thinking you weren’t worthy of his time hurt him. It physically hurt him, made a deep ache twinge in his chest. He held you tightly and pressed his lips to the top of your head. You stood like that for a long time.

Days went on, and you stayed the same. You touched him, held him, kissed him, like you’d never thought to ask him to show you the worst parts of himself. You did not cringe away from him even in your sleep. Some part of him knew that he should still be following your lead, but he couldn’t. It was like merely asking about it had been enough to shift things entirely. He wanted to show you. He wanted to trust you. He wanted to feel the way you’d touch him in his Jotunn form, and he wanted to imagine that your fingertips wouldn’t tremble in the slightest. 

It was like this was the moment of truth. He had to do it, or else he’d be plagued by this guilt for the rest of his time with you. But he couldn’t decide on the best way to do it. If he surprised you with it, barged in on you when you were sitting by yourself, that might be setting you up for failure. If you didn’t know that he was coming, you were far more likely to think that he was an intruder, and he was certain that he’d be forced to misinterpret your fear. But he was afraid to tell you that he’d changed his mind. By now he knew you well enough to know that you’d fight him on it. You’d shake your head and tell him that he didn’t have to show you anything. You might even apologize to him again, as though you had _anything_ to apologize for.

At last, he made his plan. He’d do it while you sat together in the evening. His heart pounded so fiercely in his chest that it was a wonder you couldn’t hear it. You were leaning against him, and he had one arm slung around your shoulders. He wanted to do it without a sound, without a warning, but he worried that it would be too sudden and unexpected. He started blankly at the book in his lap for a while, and then he closed it just a little too forcefully. It made you turn to look up at him with a question on your face.

“Close your eyes,” he managed. “I’ll show you. But I want you to prepare yourself first.” Your brows furrowed, and you opened your mouth, surely to protest or to remind him that he didn’t need to, but he silenced you with his lips on yours. You kissed him back fiercely, and he felt you turn your body to have better access to him. He memorized the feel of you, the taste. He could so easily ruin this all. When he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against yours and willed his desperation into you. “Close them. Please.”

After several long moments, he felt you nod. Sure enough, when he pulled back, you had closed your eyes. He reached for your hand to pull it up to his mouth, but even after he kissed your knuckles, you didn’t allow him to release you. Very well. He sat forward to place his book on the coffee table and ignored the way his hand was trembling. He had every reason to expect that things would be fine. You had never shown him anything but unrestrained love and adoration. 

It wasn’t easy, but he allowed the glamour to drop. He watched his skin darken, watched the ridges of his other form bubble up from beneath his skin. He did his best not to tighten his grip on your hand. He had to let you pull away if you needed to. It would hurt him, of course, but there was no way he could bear the thought of forcing you to stay close to him against your will. 

He should have known better. You were the one to tighten your grip, like you knew what he was thinking. Perhaps you did. He laid his head backwards against the back of the couch and took a breath, trying to adjust once again to this new form. When had, he turned his head to look at you again. Your eyes were not screwed shut, as he might have expected, and you were not ashen with fear. He wanted to catch you up in his arms and kiss you with everything he had, but that was unwise. 

“You can look.” Why did he feel like he was walking towards his death? 

You kept your head down, but he knew when you opened your eyes, because you squeezed his hand even tighter. With your free hand, you reached out to trace his skin. You weren’t trembling. He held fast to that. Watching your fingers trace the ridges in his arm did things to him, but he fought to keep his expectations low. It wouldn’t be fair to expect you to be okay enough with all of this for him to be able to show you more often, would it? You followed the path up his forearm, and he held his breath as you raised your gaze along with it. 

He didn’t watch you look up. He didn’t watch you take in his face. He couldn’t. He wanted to close his eyes entirely, but he knew that you needed to see how deeply red they were so that they wouldn’t startle you. Beside him, you shifted. Before he could even begin to prepare himself for you to pull away, you merely rose onto your knees. You touched him with gentle fingertips, cautious but firm, and then brushed your thumbs along his cheekbones.

“You’re beautiful.” It was barely more than a whisper. “Loki...”

Your voice was full, heavy. It forced him to look at you. When he did, there was no fear in your face. There was not even uncertainty. Your eyes were welling with tears, but your face held only awe. He felt his heartbeat stutter in his chest. In all the many outcomes that he’d predicted, he had never once expected anything like this. At best, he thought you would look at him with gratitude, maybe relief at the fact that he’d given in and shown you his other face. He hadn’t expected you to look at him like _this_. Like you were awestruck, amazed. Shame rushed through him then, hot and foreign, and he wanted to look away from you but he couldn’t.

“Does it hurt? Are you okay? Is it too warm in here now?” You wouldn’t let go of his face. He turned his head to kiss the underside of your wrist. There was a monster in your living room. His people had stories of how he’d come for their children, rip them apart, eat them without a second thought, and you were cupping his face and asking after him. In another situation he might have surged forward to kiss you again. He couldn’t.

All he could do was nod. He watched the horror dawning in your features and you started to pull away. “I’m sorry! What can I do? I’ll turn the air on. Can you change back? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable!”

He tightened his grip on you, something that he never would have expected to be able to do when he looked like this. He didn’t let you pull away. “I’m fine. I’m okay. You don’t need to worry.”

He kept holding you until he felt his words settle inside you. You pressed your body against his and let out a long breath. “I love you.” You were sincere. You could not tear your eyes away from his, and he could not see any sign of deception. He had to blink quickly a few times when his vision blurred, but then he felt himself smile. 

“And I, you.” He’d never let you doubt that, even for a moment.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like you had to show me,” you said slowly. “But thank you for showing me. Thank you for trusting me.” A lone tear escaped your eye and glittered on its way down your cheek. He’d made you cry, but it was not with horror. It was with happiness. All of this felt so strange. 

But it also felt _right_. It was like he could finally let out a breath he’d never known that he was holding. 

You moved forward to kiss him, and you were every bit as confident and brave as you were when he wore his other face. He wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d hovered just out of reach, or if you’d brushed your lips against his first, but you pressed into him as though he still looked like the man you’d known before. He slid his arms around you even as he kissed you desperately.

When he slipped his hand beneath the hem of your shirt, he got to swallow your breathy moan and relish the heat of you against cold blue skin.


End file.
